EPISODE #002
How to Change: Habit and Behavior Change tools to help reach your goals
“The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
– Warren Buffett
Thought excercise
If you had to buy 10% of the future (earnings) of one of your peers, who would it be and why?
If you had to bet against (short) the future of another one of your peers, who would it be and why?
Most likely, you would make those decisions based on the character traits of your peers – and those traits are rooted in and built by habits!
You can choose to be the person that you’d want to own 100% of…
Habits & Behavioral Change
- The Models: concepts and frameworks for establishing, developing, and keeping habits
- The Practice: applying habit concepts for productivity, leadership, and management
- The Science: identify what makes habit models and applying habit practices work
“Transformative behavior change is more like treating a chronic disease than curing a rash.” – Katy Milkman
Big Ideas
- Change is easier when you adopt the right strategy. Most people fail to change because they adopt the wrong strategies and tactics.
- Behavior change is not a “one size fits all” approach to behavior change. Different problems need to be treated with different tactics.
- Understanding the common ‘behavior traps’ that prevent change can help more easily overcome them – ‘antidotes’.
Selected Behavior Traps
- Getting Started (or not getting started)
“We’re more likely to pursue change on dates that feel like new beginnings because these moments help us overcome a common obstacle to goal initiation: the sense that we’ve failed before and will, thus, fail again.” - Short term Thinking
“When we diagnose someone with diabetes, we don’t put them on insulin for a month, take them off of it, and expect them to be cured.” In medicine, doctors recognize that chronic diseases require a lifetime of treatment. Why do we assume that behavior change is any different?” - Impulsivity
“Mary Poppins has it right. When goal pursuit is made instantly gratifying by adding “an element of fun,” present bias can be overcome.” - Procrastination
“The costs we can impose on ourselves to help with goal achievement range from soft penalties (such as announcing goals or deadlines publicly) to hard penalties (such as having to hand over cash should we fail). There are also soft restrictions (such as eating from a smaller plate) and hard restrictions (such as putting our money in a locked savings account). The softer the penalty or restriction, the less likely it is to help with change, but the more palatable it is to adopt.” - Forgetfulness
“Timely reminders, which prompt you to do something right before you’re meant to do it, can effectively combat forgetting. Reminders that aren’t as timely have far smaller benefits.” - Laziness
“By allowing for flexibility in your routines, your autopilot can become flexible, too. You will find you respond consistently even under unideal circumstances. Overall, you’ll build “stickier,” more lasting habits.” - Confidence
“Adopting a “growth mindset”—recognizing that abilities, including intelligence, are not fixed and that effort influences a person potential—can help you bounce back from setbacks.” - Conformity
“The closer you are to someone, and the more their situation resembles your own, the more likely you are to be influenced by their behavior.”
Resources
BOOK – How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milkman
Warren Buffett – Lecture at the university of Florida School of Business 1998
Toby Sinclair – Blog Post
